The Hollow Ones(59)

“We are looking for Juanita. Would you get her for us please?”

He said, “She didn’t send you?”

Odessa opened her credentials, showing him her FBI badge. “Juanita,” she said.

The man read the large blue letters but was unfazed. “She gone. Not here.”

He started to close the door. Odessa got her foot against it before he could shut them out. Something about his face.

“I know you,” she said.

He shook his head.

Odessa found the printout of the arrest report in her handbag. She unfolded it and showed it to him. “You’re the other grave robber.” Checking the article. “Yoan Martine.”

Martine did not deny it. Nor did he try to run. He looked at Odessa and said, “I don’t get it.”

“We’re coming in,” she said.

Martine did not resist. She pushed the door open and entered ahead of Blackwood. Martine stepped backward as though their entering was no big deal.

The house was dirty. Furniture and rugs had been shoved to the sides. Trash piled up. Odessa could see through back windows to a pool full of black-green water. Some pool furniture floated in it.

Two large animal cages were set against the wall to the left, empty but for heavy-duty rope toys. Odessa said, “Where are the dogs?”

“Run off. I let them free.”

“You let them free?”

“I didn’t like the way they look at me.”

“Were they pit bulls?” she asked.

Martine nodded.

Over the smell of trash and food gone bad hung a fragrant odor. Not incense. Nothing supernatural. It was weed.

Martine’s eyes were bloodshot. He was high, all right. And not just from marijuana.

“She gone, man,” he said, feeling his way down into a sitting position on the arm of a sofa whose cushions were covered with smaller furniture: a side table, matching lamps. He scratched his forearm. “Juanita, she’s gaga—crazy. Talking all kinds of shit.”

Blackwood stood in the center of the room. Odessa questioned Martine. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“We done bad things, but…we had protection. Bakalu. The ancient spirits…”

Odessa looked at Blackwood. “Spirits of ancestors,” he said, translating.

“She promise money, she promise power, she promise sex. It was all there. And then it wasn’t there.”

Blackwood said, “Juanita. She was kindiambazo?”

Martine’s face soured as though the word itself caused him pain. “Mayombero,” he said.

Blackwood translated: “Sorceress, practitioner of Palo Mayombe.” To Martine, he said, “Tell me about the working.”

Martine shook his head. “Don’t want to, man. She was the palero. She tell us, Get this, get that. Like a shopping list.”

“Such as?”

Again, Martine reacted as though hearing the question caused him actual pain.

Blackwood prompted him. “Human bones.”

“Fula.”

“That is gunpowder,” he said to Odessa.

“Azogue.”

“Quicksilver,” said Blackwood. “Mercury.”

“Blood. Animal hair. Sticks, herbs, feathers. Stones. Sulfur. She did the work. She set the nganga.”

“The sacred iron cauldron,” Blackwood explained. “How many did she prepare?”

“She had one she would do for the rites. She do the Palo here, outside.” He pointed at the backyard with the fetid swimming pool. “For protection.”

Blackwood said, “And then?”

“Then she say she was told to make more. Smaller ones. Three others.”

Odessa said, “Did you go to Montclair? To Little Brook, Long Island?”

Martine scratched his forearm again, now digging at it. Almost trying to distract himself from painful memories with actual physical pain. “She was the mediator. She was the guider of souls, nkisi, spirits. Until…she became like an instrument herself. Now it talked through her. Kinyumba.”

Odessa looked to Blackwood. “Bad spirit,” he said. “A fiend. A specter.”

“She change,” Martine went on. “Everything change. She wanted strength. She wanted power from the ancestors. But something else come through.” Martine looked around as though hearing voices. “It’s like, you leave a door open…and a raccoon walk in. Wild spirits.”

Odessa saw now that Martine wasn’t just high, he was half mad.

“She’s not Juanita no more. Juanita never coming back. And now I see things. Strange emissions. I hear them. Nfuri. The wraiths.”

Martine jumped up from the arm of the sofa. He had filed his fingernails to sharp points, and his forearm scratching had drawn blood. He walked toward Blackwood, stopping a few feet away.

“Mpangui,” he said. He looked at Blackwood, and also all around him, as though Blackwood were radiating energy. “Cleanse me. You can eat this curse. Limpieza. Limpieza.”

Blackwood shook his head. “No, Martine.”

“I see you,” Martine said, emotion rising. “Free me, mpangui. Rid me of this curse.”

Blackwood shook his head sadly. He said, “Martine, I am afraid there is nothing I or anyone else can do for you.”